The Surprise of Grief After Baby Loss | Q&A with a Grieving Couple

Jacob & Becky Banik

Editor’s Note:

Every grieving couple is different and even within a marriage or relationship, each person grieves differently. This month we want to highlight real grieving couples who have experienced the loss of a baby in hopes that it gives you the feeling that you are not alone in your grief and that you can continue to love and support each other in the midst of your grief. Come back next week to read Part II of Becky and Jacob’s Q&A.

Tell us about your baby.

Joseph Allen (Joey) was born March 20, 2021. He was our first boy after three girls and we were over the moon to have him join our family! Hours after birth, we noticed some breathing issues and had him checked out. He was found to have multiple heart defects and transported to a children’s hospital a few hours from our home as soon as a bed was available for him. We remained there for three weeks as his team worked to discover what was going on. Ultimately, they found he had a rare genetic condition called Williams’s Syndrome, a mark of which is heart defects. He was stable enough to go home and we began making long term plans for testing and support for his needs. We had three beautiful weeks at home where he got to meet and cuddle with his sisters. He had beautiful, bright eyes and would follow his family as they moved around the room. He also loved snuggles on Mommy and Daddy’s chests in the recliner, often rocking to lullabies or classic programs (The Waltons was a favorite). He rarely cried and was a very peaceful, sweet little boy. On May 7th, 2021, Joey suffered a heart episode at home and went to be with Jesus at 6 weeks old. We miss him terribly and long to be reunited with him one day.

What was grief like for you in the early days? What is your grief like now?

Becky: Looking back on early grief, I’m amazed I am still standing. I spent days, weeks, in shock, going through the motions of daily life. I was able to get out of bed, but only to move to the recliner in our living room or our back deck when I needed air. I felt like I had to keep moving for my living children, but the ache in my chest, in my soul, was unbearable at times. Slowly my shock wore off and was replaced with anger, no, with rage. I was especially angry with God, but it poured out into all of my relationships. Through a lot of counseling and hard work, my grief, now almost two years out, has morphed into something I’m more capable of carrying day to day. I’ve strengthened my coping skills and it has made the weight of grief, which remains unchanged, easier to carry. Now, it comes in waves. I think of Joey every day, but the pain subsides more regularly than in the early days. My grief is most palpable when something triggers it- a sight, smell, sound, important date, etc. In those moments, it can hurt just like in the early days, but now I know I can survive the ache. I know I can cry out to God, lean into my support system, pour out my pain, and eventually the waters will recede and I’ll come up for air again. That knowledge helps the waves of grief feel less impossible to navigate.

Jacob: I can’t really remember a lot about those early days after he died. I didn’t sleep well because I kept having vivid nightmares recalling the night when he died. He had a cardiac event in my arms in the middle of the night. I still feel a tightness in my chest when I think about that night. In all honesty, after he died, I just wanted to crawl into a dark closet and hide from the world. My wife and I couldn’t support each other…we were too broken. So we just sort of wandered through life for a few weeks. Our other kids are still alive and we are still married, so obviously we made it through. I know we had some family members who really stepped up too, but I can’t for the life of me explain how we made it through those first few weeks except for we did.

What brings you comfort in your grief? How do you typically express your grief?

Becky: In my darkest points of grief, there isn’t much that brings me comfort. I’ve learned that I just have to feel the ache sometimes, and that is ok. My grief comes out mostly in tears now. I go away from whoever I am around for a good cry and let the flood of heartache sweep over me as long as it needs to, or as long as I am able to be alone. After the initial ache passes, I am able to find comfort again. Something simple that brings me such comfort is physical touch. I’ll reach out and hold my husband's hand or touch his arm in the night for example, or go to him for a hug. Hugs from my living children are also a huge source of comfort. There’s something about connecting in that way with the only other people on the planet that truly understand the pain of losing our little boy. Other things that help are connecting with other loss mamas, music, exercise, engaging in activities with my living children. One of our favorite family pastimes is walking on a local trail. The fresh air and the communion with nature help me reset my nervous system and make me feel closer to Joey. We also recently created a space in our home that we call our “calm” room. We have things belonging to Joey down there as well as soothing candles, a comfy chair, a sound machine, coloring books and other tools to help us reflect and connect with our emotions when we get in a heightened state.

Jacob: My grief is almost always sadness and it comes out of nowhere most of the time. My son would have had some intellectual disabilities that would most likely have kept him living with us his whole life (which is a whole other grief story because I selfishly once thought about how my wife and I would never get to do all the things we had talked about doing once the other kids were older because we would always have Joey to look after and now what I wouldn’t give for that to be my reality). So anytime I think about the things that I’m going to do that eventually we would have done together (gardening, hunting, fishing, farming), I get sad. He was born in the night so I remember holding him that first morning looking out at the sunrise while my wife slept. So sunrises are hard for me. He died in my arms at night so nights are hard. He is my only son so every time I see someone playing with their son I get sad. You can quickly see how this all adds up to a daily minefield of sadness inducing triggers.

Comfort from my grief comes from my wife and living kids. My wife and I have almost developed an ESP for each other’s grief. We can see the other struggling and recognize the signs of a grief episode sometimes before the other realizes they are struggling. My daughters help too. They’ve lost a brother (and our oldest two girls, a mom as well) so they are very good at recognizing pain and stepping in with a hug.

What has been the most surprising thing about grief for you individually? As a couple?

What surprised us most about grief, and maybe it shouldn’t have, but it did, was that grief never goes away and that you can still survive that! We assumed we’d start living again when we stopped grieving. However, there is no end to grief just as there is no end to the love we have for our son. Still, we’re able to put one foot in front of the other every day. We’re able to go to work, play with our children, laugh (though this one is still a struggle). There is life, even joy, amidst grief. As simple as that sounds, it is mind-blowing at times.

As a couple, we were surprised that grief could tear us apart as much as it did. We had been so connected as a team before Joey’s death, but after? Our marriage really struggled. We have put in a lot of work in counseling, attending retreats, studying the Bible together, recommitting ourselves to each other over and over again. We found that when the initial days after Joey’s death had passed, others moved on. We were the only ones still in it and consequently took out a lot of our big emotions on each other. We’ve had to be really intentional about investing in each other and learning the best way to support each other in our unique grief journeys.

How has your loss impacted your relationship?

There were some very dark days in our marriage where we said some awful things about not wanting to stay married. Quite frankly, we had to decide we wouldn’t quit and continue committing to that over and over again. Grief changes a person. We are not who we were when we first met or even who we were the day before Joey died. We have to relearn how to love each other as we are now, not as we were before. One of our phrases of support to one another has been, “I still choose you”.

We are the only people who lost our son. There is no one else that understands that specific pain. Realizing this has solidified something in our relationship that keeps us clinging to each other. On the flip side of that, we are the only ones to see each other at our lowest moments of grief, and that has been a strain on our marriage. We’ve learned a lot about each other through grief that we maybe never would have discovered. There is a depth to our love now that was not there before. When you go through the valley with a person, it bonds you in a way you may never have bonded before.

Meet the Author:
Jacob & Becky Banik

We live in Olyphant, PA and are the proud parents of four sweet girls here on earth and our baby, Joey, in Heaven. We are both high school teachers and love spending our free time reading and playing with our kids.